The Sleeper Wakes
by hardseeds
Summary: Claudia, Myka/H.G., Emily. Claudia decides to save lives, but many are still lost.


**The Sleeper Wakes**

—

"And here we go," H.G. says, bringing the wires together.

"Wait!" Artie yells, and H.G. starts involuntarily, the wires jerking apart before they can connect. She glances up wildly, her gaze taking in the three agents but nothing, nothing to save them but what she holds in her hands, and she doesn't know why Artie called out but she can't wait to find out, there isn't _time_, she has to do this now, before it's—

Too late. Pete lunges forwards and clamps his hands around her wrists, pulling them farther apart. "Pete," she gasps. "You must let me—" But Artie is already moving towards the bomb on the table and Myka is no longer where she should be, somehow she has backed away, backed outside the area that would be protected if H.G. could only connect the wires. Far too late.

"It's okay," Pete is saying, "Helena, it's okay."

She only half hears him, distracted by Myka, who is staring at her with eyes full of hurt and despair.

"All right," Artie says. "Go. Go, go, go." Helena swings her head around and looks at him dumbly. Red rises in his face like a tide. "We're on kind of a tight schedule here!" She gapes at him, uncomprehending, but Pete, who still has hold of her wrists, yanks them together.

Blue sparks between them, arcs out, spreads into a dome that doesn't have Myka in it, that covers only a small patch of concrete, the bomb ticking down slowly in its center.

"No!" Helena cries in horror. The wires drop from her suddenly nerveless hands. "No, it won't be strong enough!" She knows all about The Blitz, it being one of the things that had led her to believe this world should end. She knows the power that must be contained in that artefact. They are all going to die. After everything, she couldn't even manage this. She couldn't even save Myka, who had such faith in her ability to do so.

"Yes, it will," Pete says. "This is going to work. Trust us."

And then the bomb goes off.

The explosion strains against the shield, so violent and furious that Helena can't help flinching back from it. She can't see Myka through the inferno, nor Artie, and it rages against the thin blue barrier as though it means to devour it. Heat pulses out at them like they are standing in front of a forge, and for a moment H.G. thinks the shield will not, could not possibly hold.

But it does and the moment passes, and then another and another, and in another after that the flame begins to lessen; another and it starts to die. The shield flickers once, twice, and goes out. Smoke billows up, blinding them all and making them cough, and that heat rolls over them, so intense it singes H.G.'s throat and lungs. "Myka?" Pete calls. "Artie? Are you okay?"

H.G. can't see either one of them, can't even really see Pete, but she can hear them coughing. By the time she catches her breath, the smoke has dissipated, drifting up towards the distant roof, and eddies of cooler air swirl in against the angry heat still pulsing from the spot on the floor. She faces Myka across a circle of ash and char and concrete glowing an impossible, scorching red.

"Is everyone all right?" Artie asks.

"Is the shield down?" Pete says. One of his hands is still clutching Helena's arm just above the elbow. "Artie, is it down?"

Artie checks a terminal, but the red lights have stopped flashing. H.G. knows the answer before he says it. "It's down."

"It's down!" Pete hugs her in his excitement and Helena stumbles a step. She keeps her eyes on Myka, imploring her to understand. "It's down! Take that, Sykes! The Warehouse is safe. We _won_."

Myka hasn't moved or spoken, but now she takes a step back. She looks away. "I can't do this," she says, and disappears amongst the aisles.

"Myka!" Pete yells. "Myka, wait!" He starts around the blackened circle after her, but Artie stops him with a hand on his arm.

"No. Let her."

"What?" Pete says, bewildered, but Artie ignores him, glancing at H.G. and then jerking his head in the direction Myka went.

"Well?" he says. "_Go_."

"But—"

Helena doesn't hear the rest of Pete's protest, already running.

—

After the accident, the only things Emily can remember are the stories. She tells them over to herself for comfort in the room they've given her. There's little else to occupy her time between the sessions, though she knows she should follow Mr. Kosan's suggestion to look at the information they've given her to jog her memory.

It's just that the stories come easier.

"I'm sorry," she tells him on the third day when a photo of her childhood dog fails to provoke any reaction.

"It's quite all right," he says. "You mustn't try too hard. Simply relax, and I'm sure it will come back to you in due time."

"How much longer do I have to stay here?"

"Not very long," he assures her.

Two days later, she rides with him in the back of a car through Cheyenne. "That's the high school," he says, tilting his head towards the window. "You'll start there next Monday."

She keeps her eyes fixed on it as they drive past. It looks like any high school, she supposes. She only wishes she had some memory of what goes on inside it, of how to be a teacher. But Mr. Kosan has said she teaches English, and she has the stories, at least.

"Emily," he says, calling her attention back to him. "Only if you feel up to it. I've explained the situation to the school, and they're very understanding. Take as much time as you need."

She smiles and ducks her head in a nod. "Thank you." He's been so nice to her since the accident, so helpful, so invested in her recovery.

She doesn't want to disappoint.

—

"No," Claudia says. "Absolutely not."

Thomas has been working for her long enough to try arguing. "We need her," he says. "And she was born for it. You know she was. It's in her blood."

Damn him. She should have locked those files. "I don't care. Find someone else."

"But—"

Claudia holds up a hand. "Don't bring this up again. I said no."

And she promised.

—

After some delay, H.G. catches up to Myka back at Leena's, finding her sitting on the bed in her room, desolate. "Are you all right?" H.G. asks breathlessly from the door. There had been a shortage of vehicles, the three of them having come through the portal.

"No," Myka says, glaring up at her through lashes that might be wet.

"I'm sorry," H.G. says. "I—"

"You saved my life," Myka says, low, angry. "You saved my life and then you made me _stand there_ and do _nothing_ while you died."

Helena's mouth falls open. "I didn't—"

"You _did_." Myka pushes hair from her forehead with a shaking hand. "Artie had a watch. It brought us back. Just a few minutes, but it brought us back. Long enough to fix things."

Helena cannot help it. Her mind sinks fierce, sharp teeth into those words, thinking—if she'd had that watch, those minutes, what she could have done with them. _Christina_. She sags against the door frame, the old loss welling up anew.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Myka is demanding. Helena has to work to bring her attention back to the other woman. Christina is dead. Her brother, her parents, Caturanga. Everyone she ever knew is dead and gone, yet still she draws breath as though she hadn't been meant to go with them. "If you'd just told us what you planned, we could have put the shield over the bomb the first time and I wouldn't have had to—"

"I couldn't be sure it would work. I didn't know if the shield would be strong enough. Putting it around the three of you gave it the best chance of holding. It was the only way."

"No, it wasn't!" Myka says, furious. "It wasn't, Helena, because both of us are here right now!"

"Myka..."

"But instead of telling us, instead of _trusting_ us to figure something out, you just thought you'd sacrifice yourself."

Myka's tone is scathing and H.G. swallows. She does not know how to explain. Her plan had been the safest one, and saving Myka the most important thing. Myka, Pete, Artie—this is their world, they belong here. What is she? An anachronism. And— "After what I did...Myka, I don't deserve—"

"What? _Life_? A chance to have one again? A chance to be happy?" Myka ducks her head and her hands clench at the bedclothes. Her voice drops, all of the heat going out of it. "What about me? You think I don't deserve that?"

"Of course not," H.G. says, shocked.

Myka lifts her chin, eyes shining. "Then you're just going to have to suck it up."

For a moment they are still, Myka glaring defiance and Helena looking back. Considering. "All right," she says finally. "All right." And she can see that Myka is going to cry, so she goes and sits on the bed and holds her while she does, and does not let go.

—

New recruits always remind Claudia of Mrs. Frederic. She, of course, had a penchant for appearing suddenly in dark rooms. Claudia prefers to have them meet her for coffee.

The latest stands licking whipped cream from his lip and glancing curiously around the shop. "Mr. Miller," Claudia calls. She doesn't raise her voice but it carries—Samuel Morland's mouthpiece. In a few seconds he is standing by her table, blinking at her as though she is not what he expected. She gestures at the empty chair across from her. "Please, sit."

He does, after only a small moment of hesitation. "My, uh, my supervisor sent me here to meet someone."

"Yes," Claudia confirms. "You handled yourself very well last week." There had been an incident with John Stewart Bell's dice, and Colin Miller, acting upon some undefinable urge, had blown a six-month undercover operation to keep someone from rolling them. No doubt he and everyone else at the FBI had thought him crazy until Claudia took an interest. Perhaps they still do. Claudia, however, can use a man of such peculiar instincts.

"Yeah, about that," he says, keeping careful watch on her. "Are you going to tell me exactly what those things were?"

"No," Claudia says. "But you'll get your explanation." She tells him where to be and when.

Colin stares at her. "Is this a joke?" he asks, but she can tell he doesn't really mean the question. The gears are whirring in his mind as he looks at her, trying to figure all of this out. It's another indication that he's a good choice, though Claudia never had any doubts. She is long past the point of making mistakes.

Failing is another matter.

"No. Pack lightly. You can send for the rest of your things."

He hides his surprise well. "How long will I be gone?"

"Indefinitely."

He looks away from her finally, out the store's front windows at the sunny day outside. "Do I have to go? I mean, is this an order?"

"No." Claudia does not give orders.

He tears his gaze from the bright glass, takes a nervous sip from his cup, licks his lips again. Claudia knows the presence she projects and she waits for him to screw up his courage. "Then why should I do it?"

She well remembers what Mrs. Frederic would have said to that. "Because there is evil in the world," she tells Colin evenly. "And I'm offering you the chance to help fight it."

He's staring again and she leans forward slightly over the table. Say no, she thinks, as always, her eyes boring flat and hard into his. The price is too high. Say no.

But he won't. They never do.

—

The apartment is very quiet after Mr. Kosan leaves. It wasn't as though he made much noise, but the place feels empty now that Emily is alone. "At least _you're_ here," she says to the cat, who purrs and rubs his head against her shin. Mr. Kosan introduced him as Dickens. It's the first thing that's felt right since the accident.

She doesn't have much to unpack. She hangs the few clothes she brought with her in the closet, off to one side. It's silly, she knows. The other clothes belong to her too, even if she can't remember them, and anyway she can't keep wearing the same three shirts.

Mr. Kosan said she should study the apartment, that surrounding herself with familiar things would help her memory return. She tries to do as he asked, but the trouble is that nothing is familiar. Not the clothes, not the pictures, not the furniture or the food in the refrigerator or the toothpaste by the sink. If not for the books, she would feel lost in her own home.

There is a silver teakettle on the stove in the kitchen, a plaid blanket folded over the back of the couch, a crystal paperweight on the desk. She trails fingers over the soft weave of the blanket, hefts the paperweight and curls her fingers around its unforgiving surface. There's a flower suspended in the center of it, delicate petals perfectly preserved, but suddenly all Emily can think of is how much damage it would do if she hurled it across the room.

She sets it down carefully, exactly where she found it, and moves on to the next curiosity. The curtains in the bedroom are a shade of yellow that makes her wince. There are plants on the balcony. Do they need water? She has no idea, and though she searches for some time she cannot find a watering can. Why wouldn't she have one? Why?

She fills a pitcher from one of the cabinets and tips water over each plant, staring out at the view, letting her eyes rove over the unknown buildings. She puts the pitcher in the sink and tries the living room again, the coffee table with coasters that show painted scenes of Paris, the desk with papers that repeat her name.

She cannot bring herself to do more than glance at the photos on the walls, having lately seen too much of her own face next to those she can't recognize. No, that isn't true. She can recognize her parents now, but they won't be rushing here to see her, to gather her up in a hug and tell her that even though this terrible thing has happened to her, everything will be all right.

Her parents died in a car accident ten years ago. July 19, 2001. Mr. Kosan told her on the second day, when she asked why no one had come.

There are too many things, all of them new, every piece of information Mr. Kosan gave her from someone else's life. How can she mourn what she's lost when she feels no claim to what is here?

She is weary after only half an hour of looking around, can't take any more of the mementos and relics that mean nothing to her. With no small amount of relief, she finds herself in front of the bookcase. The cat is perched on the arm of the sofa, watching.

"Dickens, hmm?" she says to him, reaching out to slide _Great Expectations_ from the shelf. "In your honor, then."

She settles on the couch and opens the book, sinking at last into a world that is familiar.

—

Helena wakes enveloped by warmth. The curtains were never shut and weak light comes through the window. They've slept straight through til morning and Myka is sleeping still. Helena was holding her when they fell asleep, but they've shifted in the night and now it's the other way around, H.G.'s cheek pressed almost painfully against Myka's shoulder. She lifts her head and starts to raise herself onto an elbow, stopping when she catches sight of Myka's face, her hair spread out around her on the pillow.

How is it that I've found you? she thinks. Her arm begins to ache and she eases onto her elbow.

Myka stirs. "Where are you going?" she murmurs.

"Nowhere," H.G. whispers. Myka turns her head and H.G. feels rather than sees her smile. She presses a kiss to the edge of H.G.'s jaw, lips parted, and her mouth is so hot that H.G. gasps.

Myka chuckles low and soft. "Good morning," she says, and then her fingers are on Helena's chin, tilting her head to kiss her properly.

"Well," Helena says breathless a moment later when they part. "Good morning, indeed." She sits up, feeling very rumpled once she does. She has never been fond of sleeping in day clothes, though she has done it more often than she can count.

Her stomach chooses that moment to rumble loudly and Myka laughs again and stretches. Helena looks hastily away. Myka slides from the bed and Helena eyes her with question.

Myka smiles at her. "Come on," she says, extending a hand. "Time for breakfast."

—

Claudia is too busy to spend much time in the Warehouse these days, but it's a part of her now. She senses it wherever she is, the Warehouse and everything in it, feels it breathe and grow like another body attached to hers. There is a way to dull the link, to reduce it to nothing more than a tickle in the back of her mind to be called up when needed. That's undoubtedly the best way to remain sane, but Claudia learned at a very early age that sanity is overrated.

Better to be right, and to be right you have to _know_.

So she knows, all the time, what the Warehouse holds, every artifact on every shelf. She knows when something is added or taken away. Or touched.

Most of it she ignores, but for this she goes immediately.

They are in Sidley-58C, Colin standing stock-still while the girl clutches at his arm. Despite Claudia's best efforts, she has been with them now two years. "Colin," she says, the worry clear in her voice. "Colin, can you hear me? Snap out of it!"

"What happened?" Claudia demands, and the girl gasps and whirls to face her.

"Y-you—" she stutters, and then visibly refocuses herself. "He didn't mean to," she says. "He saw it, but there wasn't a label. He thought maybe someone had just left it, maybe you or...so he picked it up and now he won't answer me and I don't have any gloves and he—" She draws a shaky breath and peers at Claudia. "Is he going to be okay?"

The girl's gaze darts back to Colin, who hasn't moved and gives no indication that he hears her, his eyes fixed somewhere else and a quiet joy creeping over his face. Claudia steps closer. A gold chain dangles from his hand.

"What does it do?" the girl whispers.

"It makes you believe you have what you want most," Claudia says. What you want most, but can never have.

A soft, relieved exhalation of breath. "It doesn't hurt you, then?"

Claudia smiles sadly at her. "Only when you let go."

She reaches out and takes the locket from Colin's hand, the metal hot against her bare skin. She has handled enough artifacts by now that they no longer affect her unless she wishes, yet still she hears voices. There is the smell of fresh-baked cookies, and everyone is laughing.

She places it carefully in its spot on the shelf. She will move it first thing tomorrow, lest Colin find his way back. He is coming out of it now, dazed and only beginning to feel the pain.

"Colin, are you all right?" the girl says. She has her hands on his shoulders, shakes him until he looks at her. "It's me, you're back. It's okay, it's over. It wasn't real."

The meaning of her words penetrates Colin's haze and he moans, horrified, and stumbles back as though she'd struck him.

"Of course it was," Claudia says quickly, dismissively. "Everything that happens to you is real."

Some of the haunted tension leaves Colin's body and he casts a grateful look at her. He thinks she's being kind, telling him this.

Soon enough he'll know better.

—

"Omaha," Emily says to the mirror. "O-ma-ha." She's practicing. _Hello, my name is Emily Hannah Lake. I'm from Omaha. I was born March 30, 1974. My parents were George and Katherine Lake. I'm an only child. I attended the University of Nebraska and graduated with degrees in English and Education. I've been teaching English for the past fourteen years._

All facts given to her by Mr. Kosan. Ticks on her own personal timeline with vast stretches of nothing between them, blank, vanished years. And even the milestones, even the things she knows are important only because they are all she has. She's seen her birth certificate now, framed copies of her degrees, pictures of her parents and places in Omaha, but what are they? Pieces of paper. They've done nothing to help her remember, nothing to put any meaning behind this list of information she's memorized. Nothing to make it sound, in her head, like her life is being narrated by her voice instead of Mr. Kosan's.

_Good morning, class. I'm Ms. Lake. This year we'll be covering several of the classics, and I just know that by the time we're finished, you'll love them as much as I do._

She tucks her hair behind her ear, straightens up, makes eye contact in the glass. This is who you are, she tells herself. One day you'll remember.

She smiles and puts out a hand. "Hi, I'm Emily."

—

In the first few days after, Artie has them all doing inventory to the point of obsession. It's understandable, and they don't argue, at least not beyond Pete and Claudia's increasingly muttered threats of mutiny unless they are given a break.

"You can rest when you're—" Artie finally snaps, cutting himself off abruptly, not looking at anyone. He pushes up his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose and sighs, sounding very tired. "Just give me the rest of today."

"Oh, sure, he says that _now_...," Pete whispers to Claudia, and Artie flaps his hands at them in a way that makes everyone disperse back down to the Warehouse floor.

H.G. lingers behind. "Artie," she says once the others have gone. "I wanted to—"

"I guess you're staying," Artie interrupts. It gives her pause, both the words and his tone, which is clearly saying, _Don't you dare__ apologise__ to me_.

"I-I don't know," she says, not wishing to start a fight. "I mean, I'm not sure."

"Yeah, well, you'd better be," he says. "Sure."

Ah. So that's what this is. Helena straightens up, hands at her side, resisting the urge to put them on her hips. "Yes, then. I'm staying."

"Although I guess that's really up to the Regents," Artie says absently, leaning back in his chair and steepling his hands in front of his chin.

"No," Helena says, her voice ice. She is finished with that. "It really isn't."

He's a clever man; she doesn't take it for a test until he nods at her in satisfaction and moves in his chair, spinning it around and pulling himself back to the computer screen. "Glad to have you on our side," he says over his shoulder.

"Glad to be here," she answers faintly, a little surprised at how true it is.

—

The shower beats down warm and steady. Emily closes her eyes and tips her face back into the spray. The first day of school has exhausted her. She has been working two weeks now, but today the students arrived. They are exuberant, bursting with energy, class after class brimming over with it. She doesn't know how she'll keep up. There must be some trick to it, something she's forgotten, or maybe she's still weak from the accident.

They are all so sure of themselves, her students. Sure of their place in the world. She envies them that.

And so young! Perhaps it's simply because she cannot remember her own youth, but next to them she feels as though she's from another age. Or maybe it has nothing to do with the memory loss, maybe it's just the difference the passage of another two decades has on the human brain, so that even though she has less than a month's worth of memories, it isn't hard to imagine that she could be any of these children's mothers.

She lets the water soak into her hair and splays her hand across her stomach. She asked. Right after Mr. Kosan told her about her parents, she'd asked.

"What about children? Do I—"

"No," Mr. Kosan said, and she stopped. It wasn't like him to interrupt her. "You haven't married and you have no children."

You have no children, she thinks, the water streaming down around her. Her hand begins to move, fingers tracing over the thin, spidery lines that stretch across her belly and thighs.

—

"You need to rest," Steve says. "You haven't slept in over a week."

Claudia is in what passes for her office. Sometime in the next few days, something catastrophic is going to happen, and Claudia intends to stop it. She just has to find it first.

"No, no, it's cool," she says. She squints at the screen and touches a key on the keypad. The interface isn't working and she doesn't have time to fix it. "I'm good. I've got everything: coffee, Big Gulp, Pixy Sticks, Black Black gum. I'll be up until next year at least."

In fact she has none of those things. What she has is a stack of Alan's projections to wade through. A metaphorical stack. She taps out a sequence of keys.

"You need _rest_, Claud, not massive amounts of caffeine and sugar."

Claudia frowns at the screen. There are reports of a new virus in a remote village in the Qinghai Province of China. It's spread rapidly among the local population, with an eighty-five percent mortality rate. Claudia has Rosemund D'Iverie's brooch from 1348, but she would rather not have to use it.

Thus far no cases have been reported outside the village, and the Chinese authorities claim they are close to finding a cure. Claudia sets an alert to notify her if the situation worsens and moves on.

"And I don't just mean crashing on that thing for a few hours," Steve adds, gesturing towards the cot Claudia has set up in one corner. Even now her body has limits.

"I said I'm fine." There's a storm heading towards the Gulf. If it keeps growing at its current rate, it could hit New Orleans harder than Katrina. Alan predicts only a thirty percent chance of that happening. Claudia sets another alert.

"You're not fine. You can't keep pushing yourself like this. I mean it, Claudia. You'll go crazy. Let someone else save the world for a change. You need to rest."

She can't rest. There are lives at stake. There are always lives at stake. Her fingers strike at the keys.

Steve sighs. "Go home, Claudia," he says. She doesn't remember him being that mean.

"Go away, Steve," she says, and he vanishes.

—

H.G. slows as she comes down the stairs, ears straining to pinpoint the other members of the inn. She hears the faint clinking of cutlery on china from the kitchen, voices raised in eagerness from the drawing room. The morning has a lazy, unhurried feel to it, as though everyone has determined to take Artie at his word and use the weekend to relax and recuperate after their recent trials. Though it's strange, they seem much longer ago to her already, another lifetime instead of only a few days.

Another lifetime, she thinks, and quickens her pace on the last of the stairs.

She finds Myka still in the dining room, the remains of a late breakfast pushed to one side of the table while Myka's attention has become absorbed in a book. Helena feels her mouth stretch unbidden into a fond smile. "Myka," she calls, and Myka looks up, answering Helena's smile with one of her own, a guileless, happy smile of welcome.

"I have somewhere I need to go," H.G. says. She watches as Myka's smile dissolves into anxious uncertainty, and on impulse she adds, "I was hoping you would accompany me."

Truly, she was hoping for another smile, and she gets one, though it is less sure. "How long will it take?" Myka asks.

"A few hours. We would be back tonight."

Myka marks her place in the book and rises from the table, though Helena can see confusion in her eyes. "Let me just make sure they won't need us," she says, brushing past Helena into the hall. She raises her voice. "Claudia? Where's Artie?"

Claudia's head pops around the doorway to the drawing room. "Uh, the Warehouse?" she says, her voice making it clear she thinks that should have been obvious.

Myka purses her lips in annoyance. "Is there anything on the agenda for today?"

"Pete and I are doing a double feature of _Troll 2_ and _Best Worst Movie_. You guys are welcome to join."

Myka shudders delicately. "No, thank you."

"You sure?" Claudia says, raising an eyebrow. "We're making popcorn."

"In the microwave?" H.G. asks, interested. Helena adores the microwave. She was never one for cooking.

"Duh," says Claudia. "How else would you make popcorn?"

Myka grasps at Helena's wrist and begins to pull her towards the front door. "H.G. and I have an errand to run. We'll be back tonight."

"Okay, but you're missing out!" Claudia yells after them.

Outside, Myka tosses the car keys in her palm. "So where are we going?"

"You know," H.G. says casually, "I could drive. I've gotten rather good at it. And I'm adept at using the GPS as well." An ingenious device.

"Helena," Myka says, a smile tugging at her lips again. "Just tell me where we're going."

H.G. does, and this time not a trace of the smile remains.

—

Nothing is in the right place. Emily bears it as long as she can, weeks spent reaching for the toothbrush on the wrong side of the sink, opening a cabinet in the kitchen to find plates instead of glasses. Every time she wakes in the night and tries to go to the bathroom, she stubs her toe against the little table in the hallway, and really, _why_ would anyone ever put that there? What could have possessed her?

One Saturday she snaps and rearranges everything, flinging things from drawers and hauling out the contents of every cabinet. Dickens watches until she starts pushing the couch to the other side of the living room, and then he darts into the bedroom to hide under the bed.

When she's finished, she stands in the middle of the room and surveys the apartment. Nothing is where it was, she even moved the things on top of the desk and the decorations on the bookshelves. She still doesn't remember any of these things or this place, but now at least it looks like something of hers, something she had a part in.

And when her memories return and she solves the Mystery of the Toe-Stubbing Table, she can just move everything back. Easy.

It's nice to think that one day that will happen, that she'll remember who she is and the only thing out of place in her life will be the furniture.

—

Once Claudia sees her by accident. She has come to the Warehouse to return William Bleckwenn's syringe, and the girl rounds the corner, caught up in doing inventory.

Claudia knows every item in the Warehouse, but inventory is far from busy work. It's training.

"Oh," the girl says, only startled for a second. "I didn't see you there, Mrs. Donovan." That's what Claudia has them call her. It's the only instance where she and Mrs. Frederic ever shared a sense of humor.

"Most people don't," Claudia murmurs, and the girl smiles hesitantly.

"Is there...can I help you with anything?"

"No," Claudia says, then reconsiders. "You can walk me out." It's hardly necessary, but for once she has time. She has a few moments before the side effects take hold.

They fall into step. "How's the inventory?"

The girl laughs, rueful. "Long."

The Warehouse is different now. The artifacts, of course; many new, many gone. There is no Bronze Sector. The Janus coin has been destroyed. Claudia's idea of cruelty includes much the former Regents' did not.

They pass Lewis Carroll's looking glass and the girl is surprised into another laugh. "Why do you look like that?"

In the mirror, Claudia's hair is short and shockingly red. She is small and slight and wild, her head banging and a reckless grin on her face as her arm rises and falls, slamming out chords on Jimi Hendrix's guitar. She is wearing Converse and black jeans and a faded t-shirt with RTFM across the front, a long-ago Christmas present.

Claudia regards her reflection without expression. "Charles Dodgson was a real bastard," she says.

—

"Are you sure about this?" Myka asks anxiously in the hallway outside the flat.

"Yes," H.G. says, drawing her chin down decisively in an attempt to convince both Myka and herself.

Myka studies her a moment before nodding. "Let's go in, then." She puts a hand on the doorknob.

"Wait," H.G. says, though hesitation has never been in her nature. She pauses, then whirls and grabs Myka's shoulders, presses her lips to Myka's in a hard, searing kiss, trying to remember how long it's been since she's sought strength from somewhere outside herself, and wondering if that means she finally has a home again. Perhaps, she thinks, and then she's pushing through the door. Perhaps, but it is not this place. This place is nothing but a set of props decorating an empty stage.

As soon as she is in the flat, the cat comes running. Cats have always hated Helena, and Helena has always been happy to return the favour, but this one twines itself through her ankles and stands on its hind paws to stretch its front ones up her leg. When Helena reaches a hand down, it rubs its head shamelessly against it. "Oh, perfect," H.G. murmurs, almost laughing. "Hello, Charles."

"He's probably hungry," Myka says, and goes off to the kitchen. The cat abandons H.G. a moment later to bolt in that direction at the sound of a can opening.

Helena begins to examine the flat, the furniture and the knick-knacks dotting the shelves. She doesn't know what she expected—perhaps that some of this would seem familiar. But the only things she recognises are the titles on some of the books. She cannot imagine herself living here, doing what? Going to a high school, talking about literature all day, coming home to a cat?

She peers at the pictures on the wall, sees her own face smiling back brightly at her. It seems like such a happy, peaceful lie. She's not sure the world wouldn't be better off if she were still in it. She turns away and Myka is there in the doorway to the kitchen, looking at her with such affection on her face that it pierces H.G.'s heart. She had been so long consumed with grief and rage that she had forgotten love has its own pain.

Myka shifts quickly into business. "I found this above the washer," she says, holding aloft a square, black mesh bag. "It's not too long of a drive. Hopefully he'll be okay in the car."

H.G. tries to smile. "Yes. I'm sure he'll be just fine."

"Do you want to look at anything else?" Myka asks. "The bedroom?"

Helena squares her shoulders. "No, thank you. I believe I've seen quite enough." She turns back to the pictures anyway, and after a moment Myka joins her, the two of them standing side by side, the handsbreadth of space between them feeling suddenly a gulf. Helena wonders what it is Myka sees in these pictures. "What was she like?"

"She..." Myka trails off and Helena finishes the sentence with what she's already been told. _She taught English. Her students loved her_. But when Myka speaks again she says, "She didn't know me."

H.G. is used to inciting passion in her lovers, something that simmers on the surface and ignites, burns fast and fierce until it's gone, but in Myka's eyes there is nothing but dark depth. "Myka," H.G. says. "I—"

And then the cat jumps between them, scattering the papers on the top of desk, and they are busy trying to catch and corral it into the carrier.

It's just as well, because for the first time that Helena can remember, words have failed her.

—

"He really is cute, I promise," Brooke says. They're in the break room. "I'm not just talking him up because he's my brother. Please, that boy needs a woman in his life. You've got to let me set you up with him."

"Oh," Emily says. "I—I don't think so."

"But he's funny, too! I mean, funny in an annoying way, to me, because of the whole brother thing, but other people find him charming. Do you want anything? I could make a fresh pot."

"No, thank you." She doesn't care for coffee, and tea always tastes wrong in a way she can't define. "And I just...I don't think I'm ready."

Brooke fills a mug with water and pops it in the microwave. "Em, honey." She comes and sits across the table from Emily, who is trying to get a head start on her grading for the night. "It's been three months."

"I know," Emily says. "I know, but—" But it seems wrong to start dating someone when she can't remember who she is.

"But nothing." Brooke reaches across and pats Emily's hand. "It's been three months. Didn't they say your memories might not come back? You can't just sit around waiting for something that might never happen, you have to get on with your life. And you _have_, I mean, the kids all rave about you, and honestly, I don't know what the English department ever did without you. We all love you here."

Emily looks down at the hand over hers. Everyone here has been friendly, but Brooke has been the only one who has felt like she might become a friend, the only one who has been more interested in Emily than the accident. "Thank you. It's nice of you to say."

"It's the truth." The microwave beeps and Brooke goes to retrieve her water, tearing open one of the individually wrapped teabags and dunking it in. "Please say yes. Just one date, that's all I'm asking."

"I can't." It's been three months, and things are going well. She enjoys her classes, and it is true, the kids like her. But she cannot shake the feeling that she is waiting for something, that one morning she'll get up and everything will make sense. "Not right now."

"Okay," Brooke says. "I don't want to push you, so how about this. Why don't you come over for Thanksgiving?" She holds up a hand to stop Emily's protest. "You already said you aren't going back to Omaha, so you don't have that excuse. Come to Thanksgiving. Ryan will be there, and you can see if you're interested. No pressure. And if you aren't, I'll back off. Okay?"

Emily wavers for minute. She doesn't want to give in, but her alternative is spending the holiday alone, and really, what's the harm? She isn't married. She wasn't involved with anyone. Mr. Kosan made that clear. "Okay."

"Okay?" Brooke is delighted. "Okay. Wonderful." She claps her hands together and Emily smiles, glad to have made her happy. It troubles her that she doesn't know how she would have passed the holiday if the accident had not happened, but this was her invitation. She has chosen to accept it and she resolves to enjoy herself, because Brooke is right.

She must figure out how to go on, even if she doesn't remember how she began.

—

It's Pete who takes the thing from Myka, slipping it from her hand with purple fingers and sliding it quickly into a silver bag that crackles and sparks. It's Pete who takes it from her, but it was Claudia who figured it out, who made them all come here to ring Myka's bed, surrounding her so she cannot flee. Not like last time.

Myka comes back to herself slowly, and when she finally focuses, when she finally sees them standing there, the only thing on her face is panic. Her eyes go at once to the bag and the glove. "No," she says, already shaking her head. "Pete—" She pushes herself up on her elbows and then scrambles up further, back pressed against the headboard as though they have her cornered. "Pete, what did you do?"

"I'm sorry, Myka," he says, pained. "We had to. You know we had to, you were being affected by an artifact. It wasn't real."

"_No_." She flies off the bed at him, fists pummeling ineffectually at his shoulders and chest. "It was real. It _was_. You can't tell me it wasn't real, Pete, you can't—" Myka is crying too hard to get anything else out.

Pete looks at all of them, beseeching, so at sea that Claudia takes a step forward, but she doesn't know what to do after that. None of them knows what to do. They all stand there, useless.

Pete tries to get an arm around her, the one not holding the bag, but Myka shoves away from him, spins right into Artie, who doesn't waste time, who hugs her tightly to him. She fights against it, but only for a moment before she subsides, sobbing into his shirt.

For a long minute no one moves. They should go to her, Claudia thinks. Every time she blinks she sees Steve lying dead and gray in that chair, and they should go to her, all of them, and hold her like Artie is. But they don't move, and the only sound is that of Myka's grief.

Then Artie whispers something in Myka's ear, too soft for Claudia to hear. Myka gasps, a broken, hopeless noise, and begins to struggle in his arms, tearing herself from them, ripping herself away before he can get hold of her again. She bolts then, right between Claudia and Leena, Myka's shoulder knocking hard into Claudia's, and this is why they're here, to stop her, but Claudia can't and Myka is out the door and down the stairs.

For a moment they are all frozen, until Pete blinks and Claudia takes a breath and time starts up again.

Later, she goes to the Warehouse to find Myka and tries to get her to talk about what's happened. They all do, but Myka never speaks of it.

—

In January, Mr. Kosan pays her a visit. They meet for breakfast and for most of the meal they speak of Emily's work and how she spends her time. Much of it, still, is spent in books.

"Do you think it's strange," she asks him once they've finished eating, "that I could remember them but nothing else?"

"Not at all," he says smoothly. "You grew up in a bookstore, remember?"

Had he told her that? Had she forgotten? "Y-yes, of course."

He sips from his coffee but his eyes never leave her face. "Does that mean you're still having trouble with your memories? I thought you said it was getting better. That you'd begun to remember things."

She has yet to remember a single thing from her life before that table in that room, Mr. Kosan sitting across from her just as he is now. But he has been so anxious about her recovery, so interested and hopeful about her memory returning, and she has so wanted not to let him down...

And what does it matter? Maybe she doesn't know who she was, but she knows who she is. That's enough for her, and it costs her nothing to repay Mr. Kosan's kindness by telling him what he so clearly wants to hear.

"No," she says. "I mean, yes, I have. I remember more every day. I just—I hadn't made the connection."

He smiles, pleased. "I'm so happy to hear that. About your memory."

Emily smiles back reflexively and fishes her notebook from her purse. She'll make a note about the bookstore so she won't slip up again. She flips through the pages, looking for a blank one, but Mr. Kosan grabs her hand before she gets that far.

"What are those?" he asks. No. Demands. His voice is far too harsh for a simple question. She's never heard this tone from him before. It startles her so much she almost jumps.

"What?" she says, looking down at the notebook. There's nothing on the page but a few sketches. The notebook is littered with them, idle drawings scattered in the margins around notes about her classes and curriculum standards and things she's been told about her past. "Nothing."

"Emily." His voice is so severe she tries to shrink from him, but he is still gripping her hand, so hard it almost hurts. Her other hand creeps towards her throat, slides into the open neck of her shirt, and curls itself around nothing. His eyes go sharp to it and she swallows against a tremor of fear. "Have you tried to build any of them?"

She gapes at him. _Build_ them? She never even thought—you couldn't _build_ any of these things, it wouldn't be _possible_—these are just—they're a way to stay awake during staff meetings. "N-no. Why would I—they're only doodles."

In an instant he's released her and is sitting calmly in his chair, sipping from his cup, his face as impassive as always. "I see. You're very talented."

Emily swallows again and blinks, her hand falling from her throat. She glances at the drawings, then at the people around them, all of whom are talking and eating as though nothing just happened. And what did? She doesn't know. Maybe...maybe she imagined it. Or, or misread it. Mr. Kosan has never gotten upset with her, why would he do so now over something so insignificant as a few drawings?

Yes, she decides. She misunderstood. He was only interested, as he always is, as his expression is now, a small, politely attentive smile on his face as he waits for her response.

"Th—" She has to clear her throat to free her voice. "Thank you."

He nods and changes the subject and they speak of inconsequential things until he leaves. Monday morning Brooke corners her at the door to her classroom before the bell rings. Most of the students are already inside, rearranging the desks and setting up. Today they are putting Frankenstein's monster on trial.

"I saw you this weekend," Brooke hisses.

"What?" Emily asks. "When?"

"Having breakfast with that _man_. Is he why you keep putting me off about Ryan?"

"No! It wasn't like that. He was just checking up on me. He's been helping me since the accident."

"Oh, a doctor, huh?" Brooke purrs, delighted. "Is he single?"

"No, he—" He isn't a doctor. For the first time, it occurs to her to wonder what exactly he is, why exactly he is so invested in her.

Brooke sighs. "Figures. The good ones never are."

Emily remembers the crushing strength of his hand and the look on his face, which she did not imagine or mistake, and thinks, But is he?

—

One night the news has coverage of a hostage situation in a bank in Chicago. Claudia watches the whole thing from the Warehouse. A hostage is killed, with threats that another will follow in an hour if demands aren't met, then another, another. Claudia can't stop thinking about Steve's sister.

Steve has been gone for some time now. The Regents believe that to be the end of the matter, but to Claudia it was only the beginning. They are told the artifacts are dangerous, that they must all be put away and kept hidden, that using them comes with a cost. The Regents claim to know what's best, to serve the greater good, yet every day the Regents' power grows and the greater good suffers as it always has.

_You will live the life that you want_, Artie said to her once, and once, _Everyone has a choice._

She has one now, she knows. People are dying, and she can either sit here and watch, or she can get up, break the rules, and go do something to stop it.

Claudia has come a long way from the girl who kidnapped Artie, but she's still a hacker at heart.

She takes the buckskin coat and samurai sword from the shelves. There is no one to stop her. By now, there is no one to even know. When she gets to Chicago, she walks unseen through the bank walls and shoots the gunmen with her Tesla. The hostages come out swearing lightning struck the men down, despite clear skies and a stone building.

There's a ping waiting when she gets back to the Warehouse. Claudia deletes it.

It dogs her for days. Not the ping—the deaths. Two more hostages were killed before Claudia got there, three in all. If she'd known sooner, if she'd acted faster, they wouldn't have died. She can't let that happen again.

She works in the Warehouse. Gathering data is not a problem. But the Warehouse systems flag anomalies, strange things that have already occurred. Claudia needs something that will sort through all of that data and tell her of the terrible, ordinary things that are going to happen before they do. She needs something _smart_.

She starts with Turing's tape and works from there.

—

The mirror is still fogged over when Helena leaves the bathroom, and she makes a mental note to tinker with the fan as soon as she's a chance. The device is appallingly ineffective, for all the noise it makes. She enjoys the abundance of hot water, but surely by now someone could have invented a better way of dealing with the steam it produces.

Across the hall, the door to Pete's room cracks open and he sticks his head out. "Good, you're done," he says and emerges from his room, scratching at his chest. "I really need to get in there."

"Sorry," H.G. says. "I didn't know anyone was waiting."

The cat follows on Pete's heels, yowling displeasure at her. Charles has settled in with an ease that leaves H.G. feeling slightly ashamed. It adores Pete over everyone, even Helena, established its dominance over the dog with a few well-placed swats at the nose, and disdains to notice Leena or Claudia. Artie it despises, and it spent several hours hissing at Myka every time she entered a room, until H.G. informed it in no uncertain terms that if she had to choose between it and Myka, she would quite happily decide for the latter and still sleep very well at night.

Pete goes to pass her and H.G. lays a hand on his arm. "Pete. I wanted to apologise."

"Hey, no problem," he says, hands up, palms out. "You really weren't in there that long."

Helena grimaces. She never is, bathrooms being so blasted small these days, and Helena somewhat averse to close spaces. "I didn't mean for the bathroom," she says, giving him a pained smile. "I meant for...well, everything else."

His eyes change with understanding and his head tilts to one side. "Hey, we're cool." His voice is lower now, serious. "Don't sweat it. I mean, you saved my life, you saved my mom's life, you're a hundred percent vibe-free, and I know you and Mykes are tight."

Is that what they are? Tight? Her mind flashes to the rigging rope from the Mary Celeste and she stops herself from shaking her head. She still only understands half of what these people say.

"So we're totally cool," Pete continues. "I mean that." He straightens his head and catches her eye. "Although there is one thing..."

"Yes?" Helena asks, tamping down her trepidation.

"The next time Myka and I fight, can you take my side again? Because I have all these really good ideas, okay, and she doesn't listen even though—"

"Pete," H.G. interrupts, keeping her face solemn. "I'm afraid it will depend upon the argument."

He squints at her from one eye, then sucks in a breath and nods. "That's the best I'm going to get, isn't it?"

H.G.'s eyes twinkle. "I will listen. That's the most I can promise."

Pete sighs in a rather exaggerated manner. "Fair enough. So can I hit the bathroom now?"

H.G. steps aside and gestures towards the doorway. "Of course. And Pete?"

He's already in the bathroom but glances back at her, eyebrow raised.

"Thank you."

—

Emily reads the classics for comfort, returning to the old stories she knows so well. They are the only bit of continuity she has, the only thing that makes her feel like _she_ existed in some way before she found herself in that room with Mr. Kosan. The only link she has to who she was before the accident.

She reads them all many times over.

"Why is it I never see you reading anything published within the last hundred years?" the school librarian asks one day when Emily is using her luxurious twenty-minute lunch break to squeeze in some of _Wuthering Heights_.

Emily smiles and shrugs and takes a large bite of her apple to avoid answering. It had taken months before the other teachers stopped looking at her with sympathetic eyes, stopped asking in concerned whispers if she remembered anything new, and she is not about to go back.

The next day the woman finds her at her desk after classes and lays a book upon it. "You English teachers are all the same," she says. "Such snobs."

Emily looks up at her, a protest already half out of her mouth before she sees the glint of humor in the other woman's eyes. "Here," she says, finger tapping against the words _Carry on, Jeeves_ on the cover. "Baby steps." She winks and leaves the book with Emily, who takes it home and reads it, finding more delight in that evening than she can remember in her life.

She becomes convinced and from then on reads everything she can find. Much of it is terrible, of course, but much of it isn't, and there's a thrill she gets from reading something new, from not knowing how the story will turn out. She discovers that she loves modern poetry, lets lines of it lodge in her head. Every time it rains now she thinks, _Who are you really, wanderer?_

That's how she thinks of herself sometimes, though this is the only place she's ever known. That's the other reason she reads, that's the other thing the stories do. They tell her there's something _more_ than this, and she can't explain it but she's sure there is, certain of it right down to her bones.

There is something more, and one day she will find it.

She doesn't know what she would have thought before of what she reads now, and she still goes back to the classics for the comfort they bring. But more and more she finds herself seeking out new releases, books she knows she could not possibly have ever seen before. Because knowing that, knowing that there's something she has never read but that she's here now to do it?

Sometimes that's a comfort too.

—

For now, Claudia has taken rooms in Nova Scotia. It isn't close to anything, but it's not as though she will ever have to commute. The suite could be any of a hundred others, and she goes through a door and arrives in the middle of it, lights blinking on at her presence.

The room is understated and immaculate and she must look a mess in it. This job was long and difficult; her clothes are torn in places and stained with blood. But there are more people alive tonight than there would have been otherwise, so she counts this a success.

She is very tired. The wounds will wait until morning. She sheds the ruined clothes as she stumbles towards the bedroom, the last of her considerable reserves of energy rapidly fading. The lights in the bedroom come on but Claudia orders them back off, falling into the bed.

From the corner, Thirteen and Fourteen squeak their excitement at her return, just loud enough to keep her awake a moment longer. "Quiet, Petes," she mutters at them, though she knows from experience that they will not listen. Claudia doesn't touch the locket if she can help it, but she often keeps ferrets.

Most wishes, she has found, are impossible.

—

H.G. winds a path through the bed and breakfast, marking off the location of its occupants. Claudia is in her room, playing louder than she thinks on her guitar. Pete is watching television in the drawing room, one of the shows that makes Myka cringe, and Leena is in the kitchen, no doubt concocting something they will all drool over come tomorrow. Artie, H.G. assumes, is at the Warehouse.

She comes upon Myka last, standing on the deck looking out at the sky gone black. The nights are still warm though the end of summer fast approaches, and the doors are flung open, nothing separating her from Myka but air.

Myka glances over and smiles as H.G. comes to stand beside her, then turns her attention back to the wider world. "It's a nice night," she says.

"Yes," Helena agrees, careful not to look at it. There is no moon and the stars are not enough. Once she found them bright and reassuring, their glimmer a reminder of limitless possibility. Now they seem dim and insubstantial, too far away to have any hope of staving off the dark.

She turns her back on them and leans against the deck railing, focusing so that Myka is the only thing she sees, Myka who can smile like the sun coming up. Myka lets her attention be drawn from the night around them but only looks at Helena now, her eyes searching H.G.'s face.

H.G. brushes hair from Myka's forehead, leans forward and kisses her soft and slow. "I love you," she says, having found the words. "Come to bed with me."

Myka's breathing is uneven. She darts forward and steals another kiss. "Yes," she says.

_Yes_.

—

Amnesia. Emily starts to think of it as just a word instead of this horrible thing that's happened to her. The accident was so long ago. She feels far from it, the way she always has from the pictures and the list of facts, the history of who she was before it. She is steady in herself now, settled, and it becomes an event in her life but not the defining one.

She goes out to lunch on the weekends with some of her co-workers and teaches herself to cook and drives with Brooke to Casper and Cody and Laramie, where they watch Brooke's new boyfriend compete in the slack. She lets Ryan take her to the movies and out to dance. He's just as he was promised, cute and annoying and charming all at once. At times he seems familiar, and she thinks perhaps she used to know someone like him, but the idea is only a passing thought and doesn't disturb her the way it once would have.

She buys new curtains and different paintings and a bright red watering can, subscribes to six magazines and keeps fresh flowers in every room. There's a writer's group that meets every month at the library and her first attempts are very well received. More than once one of the others tells her she should try seriously to publish. It gives her a thrill to think of that, that she could, that maybe one day there could be a book out there with her name on it, that someone might read it and find strength and comfort and exhilaration in it as she has in the works of others.

It's almost the end of the school year, and when summer comes she plans to travel. She doesn't know where yet, maybe Omaha or England, Europe or India or Japan. There's a whole world out there and she wants to see all of it, wants to find that more and take it. A tour maybe, of some of the great writers' homes, or places where the great stories were set, places she can find adventures of her own.

Brooke has already said she'll take care of Dickens while Emily is away. Emily is glad of him, gladder than she ever thought she would be that first day in her apartment. He has been with her all this time and she doesn't know what she would have done without him there, without his warm, reassuring weight curled in her lap to anchor her on days she felt unmoored or his purring welcome at her return from work. How much lonelier it would have been if there were only emptiness.

She has grown very fond of him and spoils him because of it, and because the more she cares for him, the more she thinks that this is what she must have felt for him before, as he did for her. She comes to see him as another connection to her past, tangible in a way the stories are not, emotional in way she has not been able to make the loss of people and places she does not remember. Maybe she never will, maybe she won't ever learn who she was before.

But she has now. She has her students and her friends, Dickens and the stories, both the ones she loves and the ones she will bring into being. She has a life. She has learned how to be happy.

And she is, until the day a woman walks into her classroom and calls her Helena.

—

When Colin dies, Claudia goes to see his partner. They had been lovers as well. "I'm sorry for your loss," Claudia tells her. The girl cried throughout the funeral, and her eyes are still glassy and wet, cheeks splotchy. Her mouth works open and closed for a moment before she grasps at a non-existent straw.

"Is there...," she says. "Isn't there something we can—"

"No," Claudia says, having anticipated the question. "I'm sorry. I wish there were, but I'm afraid the ink with which our lives are inscribed is indelible."

She nods and bows her head, dark hair falling from her shoulders to hide her face. Claudia watches her a moment.

"Graham," she says, then pauses to let the pain subside, warning and rebuke in one. The sting never lessens, though Claudia thinks it should have by now. It's been a long time, she's getting old. No. She's gotten old. This girl is not the first to bear that name. She was called after her grandmother.

The girl looks up at Claudia, hopeful, and Claudia can be anywhere instantly, but she can't be two places at once.

"You can't change the past," she says. "But the future is still unwritten."

—

It's become something of a tradition for them to gather after the evening meal, prolonging their evenings together by engaging in a game of one sort or another. Pete and Claudia prefer card games, specifically poker, but H.G. most enjoys Scrabble, which she continues to win quite handily despite Pete's insistence upon current American spellings.

"What's your favourite thing about living in the future?" Claudia asks one night. She is sitting upside-down on the couch, head dangling over the edge, hair nearly brushing the floor.

"Central heating," Helena says at once, having lived through far too many London winter nights for the answer to be anything else. Even one would have been too many, but despite this it beats out her second favourite thing by only the narrowest of margins. Being able to hold an entire library in the palm of her hand—it makes Helena shiver just to think of it.

Third, of course, is modern dentistry.

They retire upstairs after the game has finished. Myka has her hand, and once in the room she turns and pouts at H.G. in a way Helena has learned to take half-seriously. "What?" H.G. asks. "You won tonight, it can't be that."

"No," Myka says, and smiles the tiniest bit. "I just thought..." Her voice drops into a mumble that is somehow endearing. "...maybe I was your favourite thing about living in the future."

Helena laughs. "You, darling," she says, drawing Myka close. "Are my favourite thing about living."

—

"What is that?" Emily asks, though of course she knows. She remembers. It's the first thing she does, that coin in her palm, looking up to find herself in a room at a table with a man. She remembers and it terrifies her and she is already terrified. She is afraid of the man in the wheelchair. She is afraid of what these people might do to her, afraid she might never get to go home. Afraid for her life.

"The end of Emily Lake," the man says, and she struggles to pull away, fear and adrenaline spiking, but he presses the coin into her hand. It is cold like ice, like death.

"Just remember," he says, but she cannot answer him. The coin is too cold. It burns her. She can't look away from it, and then it gleams and the memories begin to come.

They flood over her in a wave, swamping her, drowning her. She cannot stand against them, she can't, she can't. What does she have to fight this kind of pain, this love? What does she have against the blood, against, oh god, _Christina_, against—

Oh god, oh god. What had she done?

_It is over and nobody knows you._

The words make her want to wail but she clings to them because they're hers, because H.G. Wells does not know them.

I'm Emily, she thinks. Emily.

But she isn't. She isn't Emily and all she has been is nothing.

_Because it is over._

Her name is Emily Lake_—_she had a brother_—_she's from Omaha_—_parents_—O-ma-ha—_Warehouse 12_. _Warehouse 13.

She's not from Omaha. She's never been to Omaha. She's never been anywhere.

The memories shred into her mind, stripping everything away, snatching it from her. She's Emily, _Emily_, and she clings and clings but can't keep hold, it's too fast, all of this in an instant.

_It is over._

And then the black comes, endless and annihilating, years of it, decades, every second of it slamming into her all at once and—

_And nothing comes back._

There is silence instead of a name, and she is gone.

—

Claudia takes the girl to a park. She sits on a bench while Claudia purchases ice cream from a cart. Claudia likes to come to places like this, to remind herself of how things are for some people in this world, but the ice cream is for the girl. She gets it in a cup as she knows the girl won't eat it.

"Here," she says, sitting next to her and handing it over.

The girl pokes at the ice cream with the spoon, probably not even aware of what she holds. Certainly not of the beauty of the day around them. "All of those people," she says, voice broken. "There were so many of them and they all—"

There was a bomb and a stadium full of people who they tried to save but didn't. Claudia feels the horror too, but only at a remove. Parts of her are tattered now, or tarnished, or gone altogether. She is not the person she was and she knows it. The Regents were right about that, at least, about the use of artifacts coming with a price. A toll, as she has come to think of it. But she does not let that stop her. These days she is not much concerned with herself.

"Sometimes I don't know why we do this," the girl says.

It's a numbers game. That's the only way to look at it, but numbers don't get you out of bed in the morning. They do not make you carry on.

"You loved him, didn't you?" Claudia says. Across from them, a little boy flies a kite with his mother in the wide, grassy space. "Colin."

The girl looks at her, startled, forgetting the ice cream. "Yes."

"That's why."

She looks away and is silent for a time. "Does that..." She sets the ice cream on the bench next to her. Her hands grip the edge of the slats. "I mean, was there someone you loved?"

Claudia had forgotten how young the girl must still be, to ask such a question. "Of course," she says. "I had a family once."

The girl studies her with familiar eyes. You favor her, Claudia thinks. She wishes she could have kept her promise.

After a moment, the girl reaches out and takes her hand, as though Claudia's words have somehow removed a barrier between them. She lays her head on Claudia's shoulder. "Tell me about them," she says, and listens while Claudia does.

—

In the morning, they go down for breakfast. Pete and Claudia are already there, bickering back and forth over some subject that is entirely, blessedly foreign to Helena, and Leena sets a tray of cinnamon buns on the table before sitting down herself. Even Artie has come from the Warehouse, buried though he is in a folder that likely contains their next quest.

They settle themselves next to each other at the table and while Helena places her napkin in her lap, Myka presses her leg against Helena's. H.G. smiles down at her empty plate.

Pete and Claudia's argument turns to who is entitled to the cinnamon bun with extra icing, and whether Pete's name is in fact inscribed upon it in the form of a P, or if that is merely a cinnamon swirl. H.G. and Myka catch each other's eyes and then H.G. has to turn her head away and bite her lip to keep from laughing outright. Pete unsuccessfully attempts to enlist Leena to his cause before Artie intervenes and settles the disagreement by claiming the bun in question for himself.

Myka leans over and whispers in H.G.'s ear, "Artie always gets the one with extra icing." H.G. covers her mouth with her hand.

Presently they all have cinnamon buns, extra icing or not. There is fruit as well, and eggs, and sausage, which prompts Claudia to say slyly, "I don't think H.G. and Myka want any."

Pete snorts and Myka gasps. "Claudia!" she scolds, while Helena only spears two of the sausages onto her plate, biting the end off one with a Cheshire grin. Claudia laughs and Artie snaps at her to pass the coffee urn.

It is nearer H.G.'s hand and she passes it to him instead, receiving an absent nod of thanks before he returns to the contents of his folder. Myka's hand has come to rest on Helena's knee and Leena has left a small bowl of lemon wedges next to her teacup. She has begun to feel, without quite noticing when, that she belongs here at this table, in this place, this time.

The future, she has discovered, is very much like the past. There is still breakfast, and love, and pain and loss. There are still families and tragedies; terrible, unthinkable things and people who are struggling against them every day, stopping them. Making this world a better one. There is still hope.

Pete and Claudia start to squabble again and Artie grumbles at them. H.G. and Myka share another look, everything else fading. Myka's teeth flash in a smile and laughter dances in her eyes, brighter than any star.

And there is still endless wonder, if you know where to look.

—


End file.
